The Distillation

"Legalization can go wrong if it’s not done in a strictly regulated way. Just look at how alcohol-induced deaths have steadily increased for years — or how the worst US drug epidemic ever is rooted in a drug legally prescribed by doctors."

But there’s another reading of this chart that the DEA in particular won’t like — one that argues against the DEA’s work in prohibiting marijuana and cracking down on its use.Tobacco, after all, has been legal for the entirety of the DEA’s chart. Yet all this time, the perception of how risky it is has gone up and its use has declined. That’s because of various policies, including education campaigns, mandatory warning labels, public and workplace smoking bans, and higher taxes on tobacco products. Marijuana, meanwhile, has remained illegal on the federal level. Yet, as the DEA’s chart shows, its use has continued fluctuating and perceived risk has continued dropping despite the hundreds of thousands of arrests each year for pot possession.

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